Videotron to launch Netflix-like service

Quebecor Media CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau (left) with Robert Dépatie (centre) and Manon Brouillette of Videotron, during the launch of new video on-demand service on Thursday February 21, 2013.Pierre Obendrauf
/ THE GAZETTE

Videotron Internet packages
/ Gazette Graphic

Vidéotron will be adding AMC, which broadcasts shows like Breaking Bad, to its lineup.Ursula Coyote/AMC
/ AP

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MONTREAL – Netflix is about to get another competitor in Canada, but it won't be very good unless you understand French.

Videotron announced on Thursday the launch of Illico Club Unlimited, an online on-demand video subscription service that will offer the largest collection of French-language television and movie titles available in Canada, with about 20 television series and 800 to 900 movies.

The Quebecor-owned company also announced that it will be increasing Internet speeds, offering unlimited Internet usage options and adding popular U.S. channel AMC to its television lineup.

Illico Club Unlimited, which launches on Saturday and accepts registrations starting Friday, will cost $9.99 a month, with the first month free. As its name implies, users will be able to watch an unlimited amount of the programming available on the service, whenever they want.

The catalog includes movies such as Spider-Man 3, The Social Network and Salt (in general, movies will be added to the service between the time they air on pay TV channels and when they air on broadcast television). It will also air children's programming, TV series and concerts.

Videotron CEO Robert Depatie said the focus is on providing a superior service for francophone households, so all of its content will be available in French, with 90 per cent only in French and the rest in both languages.

Netflix, which is available to Canadians for $8 a month, has little French-language content.

Though Videotron has acquired rights to its programming for all of Canada, the service will debut only in Quebec and Ontario. Manon Brouillette, Videotron's president of consumer services, said this was for technical reasons, including dealing with different tax systems in different provinces. "We'll see how Ontarians react," she said, and possibly expand to other provinces if reception is good.

Households don't need to be in a Videotron service area nor subscribe to any other Videotron service to take advantage of Illico Club Unlimited.

Like Netflix, Illico Club Unlimited can be streamed over the Internet to computers. Videotron is also promising a new application for Android-based tablets (an iPad app won't be available right away, because of issues with its digital rights management system, and a mobile app is also still being worked on and will launch in the coming months). Unlike Netflix, Videotron will also make the service available through its new-generation set-top boxes, which will allow users to see programming on their TVs without additional equipment and without using up their Internet bandwidth. The terminals, introduced less than a year ago, have reached the 500,000-subscriber mark, out of 1.46 million total digital cable subscribers, Vidéotron announced. Older terminals won't be able to access the service, which uses the MPEG4 encoding standard.

Since it arrived in Canada in 2010, Netflix and other Internet video streaming services have been seen as a threat to Canadian cable and satellite providers, who are licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and must follow regulations in terms of Canadian content, packaging and pricing. As an unlicensed service, Netflix needs only to worry about acquiring the Canadian rights to programming it wishes to distribute in Canada.

According to a CRTC report last year, about 10 per cent of Canadian households have a Netflix subscription.

Videotron also announced on Thursday that it was upgrading its residential and business cable Internet services, notably by introducing an option for unlimited download. In the coming weeks, residential subscribers can remove their download caps with a $30/month add-on, which goes down to $10/month for subscribers with at least three services (television, Internet, home phone or mobile). Business subscribers will have their download caps eliminated free.

The new add-ons follow similar offers from rivals Bell Canada and Rogers Cable.

Starting April 17, Videotron is also upgrading its Ultimate-Speed Internet packages, increasing their upload speeds and data caps.

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